This small City by comparison to some others, Lichfield is located in Staffordshire on the edge of the West Midlands, not far away from the East Midlands and is dominated by its Cathedral.
Lichfield sees to be a quiet place but as it lies along the route of the proposed HS2 railway line, It will no doubt see expansion when it becomes commutable from London.
The Bus Station is old fashioned being reminiscent of the 1960’s and ripe for development. That is not to say that it is not functional. The buses are driven in and driven out. No drive in and reverse out. The shelters are quite effective at keeping the rain out as I found out for myself !
Most of the services operating out of the bus station are in the hands of ‘Arriva’ but there are others.
The ‘Arriva’ fleet is represented by
YJ11 OKD
An Optare Versa from ‘Arriva Midlands’ about to depart for its home town at Burton on Trent.
YN08 HZR
A Scania K230UB Omnilink from ‘Arriva North Midlands’.
YN08 HZM
Another of the same from the same batch albeit wearing the earlier livery.
YJ57 AZR
A VDL SB200 with Plaxton Centro bodywork.
Old and new ‘midi buses’ were in attendance.
SN53 ESO
A Dennis Dart fitted with Plaxton’s Mini Pointer Dart bodywork and
MX12 JXF
An Alexander Dennis Ltd. Enviro 200 branded for the Walsall-Lichfield service 35.
The attractive young lady driving this bus had a smile that was like the sun coming out. She quite made my day!
YJ61 FEH
Another VDL SB200. This time fitted with Wright’s Pulsar 2 bodywork. Working from Cannock depot.
‘Arriva’ operates the X65 linking Lichfield with Tamworth. Seen waiting departure time is
BJ12 YPM
A Mercedes-Benz Citaro.
The X65 was was introduced to compete with CEN Group owned Central Buses who operate a fleet of approximately 24 buses across the West Midlands.
They run the service between Lichfield and Tamworth as the X55 and cleverly include the ‘55’ in its ‘xpress’ branding.
YX63 ZXL
An Alexander Dennis Enviro SLF 200. One of 2 in the fleet. (the other being ZXK).
‘Midland Classic’ are a relatively new operator mainly working in the Burton-on-Trent area. They operate the X12 from Burton to Lichfield on a half hourly basis and hourly it is extended to Sutton Coldfield.
S25 SLT
A Scania L94UB with Wright Pulsar bodywork. One of 5 similar that came from ‘South Lancs Transport’ of Atherton in Greater Manchester.
DY57 HYM
It is unusual for a Ford Transit to appear on bus work but this one working for ‘Solus Coaches’ is operating on service No. 823 between Lichfield and Rugeley.
YJ54 BUE
An Optare Solo of ‘Blue Diamond’ (BD). There are a couple of these working a circular service round North Lichfield. The other is BUF. Both came from ‘Rossendale Transport’.
‘BD’ started with the formation of the Birmingham Coach Company in 1984 and today after a complex series of take overs is now part of the ‘Rotala’ group.
Lichfield apart from its Cathedral is an historic city and because if that finds itself on the tourist trail
R161 LDE
A Volvo B10M with Plaxton bodywork. A now elderly coach which looked very well. Working for ‘Chris Cars’ who use the fleet name ‘Coracle Coaches’, based in Carmarthen in South Wales.
New to ‘Jones’, Login in 1998 as R161 LDE it was re registered 834 TDE by ‘Jones’ in 2005. Presumably because ‘Jones’ wanted to retain the date less registration it reverted to the original when the coach joined ‘Chris Cars’ in 2011.
KVL 261
A Plaxton Cheetah bodied Mercedes-Benz-Vario working for ‘Sleafordian’ from Sleaford in Lincolnshire who this year celebrate 50 years in the coaching business. Congratulations !!
(Somebody has pinched the 3 pointed M-B 'star' off the radiator).
KSK 985
A Volvo B9R with Plaxton Elite bodywork. Working for ‘National Express’ contractor ‘Park’s of Hamilton’ and just leaving Lichfield on on its way to Brixham.
The driver very kindly stopped and posed the coach for me.
K107 OHF
A Volvo B10B with Northern Counties Paladin bodywork employed by ‘Arriva’ on driver training duties called in to sample the bus station’s facilities.
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